TSAIGUMI is Nigeria’s first operational Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), and there 5 importance things to know about this gadget which shows the country's improvement in military technology.

More so, the gadget was confirmed to be a product of the Research and Development team of the Nigerian Air Force, and third of such in a count. The first was AMEBO which is just a prototype.

The second UAV was GULMA and Nigeria's first indigenous UAV. GULMA relies on air traffic control and a direct radio frequency communication system to gather information with many attendant limitations. Hence, it was not made operational by the air force.

Taking note of the limitations, the air force team developed a new gadget codenamed TSAIGUMI to assist in counter-terrorism campaign in the country.

Here are five important things to note about this technological fate by Nigeria.

1. The gadget was designed by a female aerospace engineer in the Nigerian Air Force named Nkemdilim Anulika Ofodile. She holds a PhD in Control Engineering from the University of Leicester, United Kingdom.

2. The Tsaigumi UAV has operational capable of working both day & night operations. It has a maximum take-off weight of 95kg & its payload is an electro-optic/infra-red camera system.

Nkemdilim Anulika Ofodile - the designer of Tsaigumi UAV

(NAF)

3. The device has an operational endurance time of more than 10 hours. Its flight heights are 15,000 feet & a mission radius of 100km.

4. Tsaigumi UAV can effectively be used for ISR operations in land and sea domains. Other operational deployments include policing operations, disaster management, convoy protection, maritime patrol, pipeline and power line monitoring.

5. The UAV could be deployed for the protection of wildlife, weather forecast and telecast.